Maldives

According to legends, the first settlers of The Maldives were people known as Dheyvis. The first Kingdom of the Maldives was known as Kingdom of Dheeva Maari. During the 3rd century BCE visit of emissaries, it was noted that the Maldives was known as Dheeva Mahal. During c. 1100 – 1166, the Maldives was also referred to as Diva Kudha, and the Laccadive archipelago which was a part of the Maldives was then referred to as Diva Kanbar by the scholar and polymath al-Biruni. The name Maldives may also derive from Sanskrit माला mālā (garland) and द्वीप dvīpa (island), or මාල දිවයින Maala Divaina ("Necklace Islands") in Sinhala. The Maldivian people are called Dhivehin. The word Dheeb/Deeb (archaic Dhivehi, related to Sanskrit द्वीप, dvīpa) means "island", and Dhives (Dhivehin) means "islanders" (i.e., Maldivians). In Tamil, "Garland of Islands" can be translated as Mālaitīvu (மாலைத்தீவு). …

In the 6th–5th century BC, kingdoms already existed in the modern-day Maldives. The country has an established history of over 2,500 years according to historical evidence and legends. The Mahāvaṃsa (300 BC) has records of people from Sri Lanka emigrating to the Maldives. Assuming that cowrie shells come from the Maldives, historians believe that there may have been people living in the Maldives during the Indus Valley Civilisation (3300–1300 BC). Several artefacts show the presence of Hinduism in the country before the Islamic period. According to the book Kitāb fi āthār Mīdhu al-qādimah (كتاب في آثار ميذو القديمة) (On the Ancient Ruins of Meedhoo), written in the 17th century in Arabic by Allama Ahmed Shihabuddine (Allama Shihab al-Din) of Meedhoo in Addu Atoll, the first settlers of the Maldives were people known as Dheyvis. They are said to be from Kalibangan in India. …

The Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls, that stretch along a length of 871 kilometres (541 miles) north to south, 130 kilometres (81 miles) east to west, spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 sq mi), of which only 298 km2 (115 sq mi) is dry land, making this one of the world's most dispersed countries. It lies between latitudes 1°S and 8°N, and longitudes 72° and 74°E. The atolls are composed of live coral reefs and sand bars, situated atop a submarine ridge 960 kilometres (600 mi) long that rises abruptly from the depths of the Indian Ocean and runs north to south. Only near the southern end of this natural coral barricade do two open passages permit safe ship navigation from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other through the territorial waters of the Maldives. …

The culture of the Maldives is influenced by the cultures of the people of different ethnicities who have settled on the islands throughout the times. Since the 12th century AD, there were also influences from Arabia in the language and culture of the Maldives because of the conversion to Islam and its location as a crossroads in the central Indian Ocean. This was due to the long trading history between the far east and the middle east. Reflective of this is the fact that the Maldives has had the highest national divorce rate in the world for many decades. This, it is hypothesised, is due to a combination of liberal Islamic rules about divorce and the relatively loose marital bonds that have been identified as common in non- and semi-sedentary peoples without a history of fully developed agrarian property and kinship relations. …

Historically, the Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. From the 2nd century CE, the islands were known as the "Money Isles" by the Arabs. Monetaria moneta was used for centuries as a currency in Africa, and huge amounts of Maldivian cowries were introduced into Africa by western nations during the period of slave trade. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. In the early 1970s and 1980s, the Maldives was one of the world's 20 poorest countries, with a population of 100,000. The economy at the time was largely dependent on fisheries and trading local goods such as coir rope, ambergris (Maavaharu), and coco de mer (Tavakkaashi) with neighbouring countries and East Asian countries. …

The largest and the only ethnic group in the country are Maldivians (Dhivehin), native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising today's Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. They share the same culture and speak the Dhivehi language. They are principally an Indo-Aryan people, having traces of Middle Eastern, South Asian, Austronesian and African genes in the population. In the past, there was also a small Tamil population known as the Giraavaru people. This group has now been almost completely assimilated into the larger Maldivian society but were native to the island of Giraavaru, which was evacuated in 1968 due to heavy erosion of the island. A small Sinhalese population in the Maldives also made up about 0.7% of the total population in 2000. Some social stratification exists on the islands. …